Candles
by adangeli
Summary: A misunderstanding on a planet leaves Jack and Sam in close quarters.


Sam knew she was in trouble when she walked into the tent and saw all the candles.

"Uh..."

"Wow," came the familiar voice of her commanding officer as he plowed into her back after she stopped short at the sight.

He steadied himself by placing his hands on her hips lightly and she couldn't help the shiver that raced up her spine, hyperaware of him as she was after spending all day tending to his every need and whim as she was expected to do as was the local custom.

He'd been good about the whole thing, really, and hadn't abused the power bestowed upon him by the local leaders and one General Hammond who insisted they play along – five weeks into trade negotiations with a friendly planet, playing along is exactly what you did.

"That's..." He started, but trailed off.

"A fire hazard?" She guessed.

"I was gonna say a lot of candles."

She noticed he still had his hands on her hips, his fingers were burning into her skin through her clothes. She stepped away from him, felt the drag of his fingertips as she stepped out of his hold.

"So... I think we're supposed to spend the night here," she ventured.

"Yeah," he said, sounding a bit uncomfortable, "I'm getting that impression, too."

"You'd think one of the earlier teams would have mentioned this."

"This might have something to do with a conversation I had with Tondoloyo earlier."

"Really, sir?"

"Well, sort of like the other teams didn't have to... serve... each other like we did..."

"They didn't have to spend the night like... for crying out loud," she spit. "They think I'm your-"

"Carter," he said in an appeasing tone, "does it matter what they think? We know the truth."

"It matters to me. Sir."

"Why don't you... sit. Let me do for you for a while."

It was a nice thought, she supposed, but there wasn't really anything to be done. And sitting just meant getting up close and personal with one of the silky looking pillows and she didn't think that was going to help matters much at all. "Thanks anyway, sir, but I really don't think that's necessary."

He grimaced, apparently realizing there wasn't much to be done too.

"We can set up a watch rotation so-"

"Really, sir?" She asked, raising an eyebrow Teal'c would have been proud of, had he actually still been on the planet. But oh no, he and Daniel just had to go back to the SGC for some research materials. Damn friendly planets.

"Okay, we probably don't need a watch rotation."

"No."

But that did leave the problem of the sleeping arrangements. The tent wasn't all that large and the candles took up a lot of space. Because they'd been told accommodations would be provided, they didn't have gear. And because they didn't have gear they didn't have sleeping bags. And because they didn't have sleeping bags they were unprepared to sleep anywhere but on the silky looking pillows that littered the floor. Sam groaned. The colonel

looked at her warily as if to say what now?

She gestured at the pillows helplessly and he seemed to get the picture. His eyes widened slightly but then he took a deep breath and nodded slowly. "There's... uh... plenty... plenty... of room."

She didn't know who he was trying to convince. Because to her eyes they were going to be pretty up close and personal with one another. No regulation distance between sleeping bags in this joint.

Eventually, it took maybe another five minutes of the two of them standing there, not saying anything and surveying the room, Sam began to see the humor in the entire situation. She started to giggle. The colonel chuckled. And just like that, the tension was broken.

"You know, if you were my... you know... this would be..."

"Yeah," she said. She could feel her cheeks flushing pink at the very idea. Because if she were anything resembling what the people of this planet thought she was to him, this tent would be absolutely perfect for the services she'd be performing for him tonight. The ambiance was... incredible. The scent the candles gave off was spicy yet soft and glow of the light was sensual and the warmth was nice. And, well, warm.

So warm, in fact, that the colonel was stripping out of his BDU jacket leaving him in his t-shirt and trousers. He shot her an apologetic smile. She just shrugged and shucked hers off, too.

He checked his watch. "It's early."

"Well, they expected us to-"

"Right," he said quickly. "There's no way I'm going to be able to sleep yet."

"Me either," she agreed. Normally, he'd pull a deck of cards out of his pack and they'd pass the time. But... no pack. "We could just... talk."

He didn't look bored with the idea which she took as a good sign. He looked around the tent, for what she wasn't quite sure, and then sighed theatrically. "I guess we'll have to make ourselves comfortable on the pillows. Not sure my knees are going to like that."

"Oh," she said thoughtfully. She hadn't really considered that he wouldn't be comfortable sitting cross-legged on the floor, even if he was sitting on a pillow. "We'll... wait." She hurriedly arranged the pillows so they were two parallel rows instead of a square, as they'd been before. Then, to demonstrate her idea, she lay down, on her side facing the other row of pillows and propped her head up on one arm.

He grinned at her and then followed suit. It was casual and a bit intimate to be lying on the floor talking to him, rather than sitting, but they'd lain in sleeping bags and done the same, so she didn't see anything wrong or improper about it.

And had they stayed on the safe topics they started out with, it probably would have been fine. But somehow they moved on to personal things. And the conversation turned weighty underneath the strain of the recent events.

"How're you doing with... you know... everything else... lately?"

Sam could have pretended she didn't know what he meant, but it would have been silly and trite to have done so. It was one thing to have lost Janet, and another to have almost lost him, and yet another to have lost Cassie to Janet's sister who lived in Boulder. Yes, it was only two hours away, but it was a crushing blow to have lost the girl after losing her mother. Even if she was soon to be leaving for college anyway.

"I'm... I... Well..." Sam didn't quite know what to say.

The colonel reached out and put a hand on her arm. His hand was warm and heavy and made her skin tingle underneath the weight of it. She remembered, as she felt him there, and as she looked into his eyes, what it had felt like to watch him fall that day in the field and she shuddered, let her eyes slip closed. "You okay?" he asked her softly.

"You almost died," she said, her voice as low as his.

He squeezed her arm. His eyes were open and dark, not a shade guarded like they usually were, and in them she could see something that she wasn't quite sure how to name but it seemed almost like an invitation. She found herself rocking towards him, involuntarily. She caught herself. She wasn't sure what she was doing, but if she had to put a name on it she would say she was preparing herself to kiss him. And that was ludicrous. Wasn't it?

But his hand was moving down her arm and then closing around her wrist. His hand felt big. Her wrist felt delicate. And then she felt him, using her body as an anchor to pull his body across the floor of the tent to her. Suddenly, he was inches away from her. Her breath caught in her throat. But then he was gathering her to him and she was in his arms, slightly over him. It took her a moment to fully relax into him, but when she did, when she tucked her face against him, he took a deep breath and released a contented sigh.

She realized then, that while she'd hugged him a handful of times, she'd never, ever done so while horizontal and that added a whole new dimension to the experience. She shifted and their legs fitted together seamlessly. That's when she realized they were pressed together from forehead to ankles and she felt a little frisson of desire shoot through her body. She tried to tamp it back down but there were some things she couldn't talk her body out of and all of a sudden it was noticing things like how good he smelled and how the hand that was sweeping over her back felt.

She made an involuntary sound in the back of her throat that seemed spur him on. He rolled her over so she was on her back and he hovered over her, one of his thighs between her legs, pressing against her intimately, but not insistently. One of his hands skimmed over her collarbone, down the outside of one breast, down her ribs and to her hip. Everywhere he touched her, she was on fire.

Suddenly, she realized her eyes were closed. She opened them to find his eyes riveted on hers and she wondered how long he'd been waiting for her to open up to him. How long he'd been watching her revel in the sensations he was creating in her body. It embarrassed her, for him to know she'd been so caught up in what she was feeling. She blushed, she could feel the heat rush into her cheeks.

He looked down at her mouth, then back at her eyes, the back down at her mouth again, and she realized that he was contemplating kissing her. With another involuntary action, she licked her lips. That seemed to make up his mind for him. He dropped his head, his tongue followed the path hers had just made and she gasped at the sensation. He didn't waste a moment. He caught her top lip between his and gave her a quick kiss, but then he was opening his mouth to her and sliding his tongue against hers in a way that made her entire body arch against his in a sensuous slide that set all her nerve endings on fire.

The grip he had on her hip tightened and then relaxed several times before he moved his hand down her body to her outer thigh. He wrapped his big hand around as much of her leg as he could, and she swore she could feel his fingertips burning her through her BDU trousers.

Their kiss shifted from exploratory to sensual very quickly, as if they'd been kissing one another as a precursor to something more for years. She could feel her body preparing itself for him with each thrust of his tongue. She didn't dare hope that was where this was going, though. The setting might be right, and they may have crossed a line they'd never crossed before but that didn't mean they were going to... but, oh... She moaned with want into his mouth as he rolled his pelvis and his very evident erection into her hip.

"Sam," he said, tearing his mouth from hers.

She was grateful to hear her given name under the circumstances. She wasn't sure she wanted to be Carter while she was in his arms. She nodded at him slowly, her eyes accepting. "Yes," she said softly.

He looked at her, questions all over his face.

"Yes," she said again, more firmly, reaching for the waistband of his trousers and fisting his t-shirt. She tugged at the material, dislodging it from where it was tucked in. It took him only seconds to come out of the t-shirt altogether and she had to stifle a laugh. It wasn't hard, once presented with his bare chest. She'd seen him shirtless only a couple of times over the years and it had always made her mouth run dry. This time was no different.

She was supremely attracted to the man, and this time, with him so close, she could see him and smell him and it was sensory overload. The scent of his soap, his deodorant, and just pure him was overwhelming. She brought her hand up to his chest to trail her fingers through his chest hair. She liked the feeling of it, softer than it looked. She let her fingers wander over his ribs, over a scar there, then over to the still bandaged place where he'd been hit with the staff weapon. He was much better now, but not completely healed.

She sighed again. "You almost died."

He covered her hand with his, holding it against the bandage. "But I didn't."

"I almost lost you before this happened."

"But you didn't," he said quietly, and leaned forward and captured her lips in another searing kiss. There was something in the way he kissed her, a strength, that told her he was trying to prove that he was still with her. And there was a desperation in the way she kissed him back that likely told him how much it meant to her that that was true. When she was breathless he released her and, with a smile, sat up and reached for his boots.

She did the same and soon, they were both free of their footwear.

Feeling bold, she reached for the button on her trousers. He watched her every move, his eyes, if possible, going darker as she popped the button and slowly removed the garment, exposing her black cotton briefs. She found she actually felt kind of sexy in her black t-shirt and black underwear and she knew it was because she was with this man. And this was, well, kind of the fantasy, wasn't it?

He unceremoniously stripped his pants off while never taking his eyes off of her which left him in, nicely tented, she noted, boxer briefs. She bit her lip, crossed her hands at her waist, grasped the hem of her shirt and pulled it up over her head. She felt it tousle her hair as it came off. But she thought that was probably okay. He probably didn't care much about her hair at this point anyway. She wished she was in something sexier than a sports bra, but she hadn't exactly been planning for this when she'd dressed for the mission.

If the look in his eye was anything to go on, though, he didn't seem to care about her choice of underwear. He was looking at her like she was gorgeous. And, when he looked at her like that, she felt gorgeous. She flushed again.

He turned from her then and she was momentarily confused and then, a smile broke out over her face when she found him rearranging the pillows to the original configuration they'd found them in – the one ideal for what the tent had been set up for in the first place - the configuration they'd suddenly found they were going to need after all.

"Let me help," she said, her voice low and soft in the space they'd created between them. On their hands and knees they laid all the pillows back out in the original square they'd been arranged in. And then, without quite knowing how it happened, Sam ended up on her back again, underneath a hard-bodied colonel.

"I have a theory about these candles," he said and then he dipped in for another kiss as he reached for one. Her eyes warred with watching what he was doing and slipping closed.

Watching won. He dipped a finger into the pool of melted wax and brought it, quickly, to her skin where he held his heated fingertip against the swell of one breast. She gasped at the sensation. He kissed her again. "Feel good?"

She nodded. The nipple of that breast had drawn up into a sharp peak at the instant his hot fingertip had lit on her sensitive skin. And she ached for more contact.

"I think they're supposed to be used."

"Used?"

"I don't think they're just for... ambiance."

Used? She wanted to ask again, and this time to explain. She always had thought of herself as a fairly adventurous lover but what on earth were they meant to do with a tent full of pillar candles? She wanted to ask but she didn't want to sound stupid, to him, either.

"Take this off," he said, trailing a finger along the band of her sports bra, "and lie back." He turned away from her then to peruse the candles and she couldn't help the confusion that was starting to build. He'd watched with rapt attention as she'd undressed to this point and now, when he was getting her topless, he was more interested in the candles? She rolled her eyes. But she took the bra off anyway and did as he asked.

He chose a couple of candles as she watched. When he turned back to her, it was worth the few moments he'd been focused on something else. The way his eyes roved over her was titillating. She felt the caress of his gaze as it washed over her from her shoulders to her navel, uninterrupted.

He set the candles down on the floor of the tent near her head, just past the pillows but within his easy reach. He settled on hand on either side of her head and pressed himself down over her until he could kiss her again, his arms holding his body just up off of hers. He lowered himself slowly until she could feel his chest lightly brushing against her nipples with each breath either one of them took.

The stimulation was just enough to set her on edge. It made her want more of him. She slid her hands up his rib cage on either side and gripped his sides, holding him in place. When he nipped at her lips, she dug her short nails into his flesh and he made a satisfied sound deep in his throat. She filed away the information that he liked a little pain with his pleasure and continued on with the kissing.

She felt him position himself, on knee on either side of her hips and then he was sitting up, pulling his mouth away from hers and she was bereft. She actually pouted and it put a smile on his face. He reached over her head to grab one of the candles and sat back, settling his weight on her upper thighs.

Before she was ready, though she wasn't sure she could have prepared herself for the sensation even if he'd warned her, he tipped the candle over on it's side and poured a thin stream of hot wax onto her belly. She hissed and yelped, prepared for the odd stinging sensation to give way to pain, but it didn't. It gave way to a pleasant warmness.

"Told you, they're meant to be used. This wax melts at a low temperature. It's not going to burn you," he reassured her, finally.

She exhaled through pursed lips and waited for him to pour more wax on her, unsure what she was supposed to be getting out of this. He poured another stream of wax onto her, this one longer, and she felt the heat and tingles suffuse her system pleasantly. It was an interesting sensation. Actually kind of... pleasant. The next stream of wax dipped into her belly button and made her clit twitch unexpectedly. Well. Okay.

After that, he began to tease her with the wax. He made swirling streams that moved up over her breasts and around her nipples, never quite going where she wanted him to go the most until she was beginning to try to move into the path of the stream of wax. He chuckled lowly, always the master of where the wax went. When he finally, finally, poured the heated wax onto her aching nipples she sighed contentedly. He leaned over and blew cool air over her super-heated nipples and watched as the wax dried and hardened. And then, she gasped as he rolled the dried wax off her skin between his fingers.

He leaned over, his hard cock pressing into her, and took her abused nipple into his mouth and suckled at it gently. The new sensation was intense after the overstimulation of the heat. It felt so nice. He switched to her other nipple and she moaned lightly. She could feel him smile against her breast. "Feel good?" He asked her for the second time that night, his words jumbled around her flesh.

"Yes," she said.

He pressed a kiss against her breast and then sat back up. She instantly missed the pressure of his erection against her pelvis. He hooked his fingers into the waistband of her panties and then began to peel them off her body and he scooted backwards down her legs. She tried not to be self-conscious as he revealed the most private part of her, but it had been a long time since she'd been with anyone and she was out of practice with this part of intimacy.

At her feet he wrangled himself out of his underwear, too and she caught a flash of him, fully nude and her breath caught in her throat, her eyes caught on his cock, thick and hard and glistening with precum. It made her sex clench with desire. She wanted him. She didn't want to wait for whatever tricks he thought he had up his sleeve, she didn't care about the candles anymore, she didn't care about any pregame show, she wanted him inside her.

"Sir," she exhaled on a moan she might be embarrassed about later.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Sir?" And then he quirked a lip. "I'd say something about being kinky, but I guess I'm the one that started with the candles."

There'd been an air of angst in the room when they'd started things because it had been about him being alive more than anything else, but the mood had shifted to something more playful between them and for that, she was glad. She didn't want things with him to be fraught, not the first time, not the way she always suspected it might be. She wanted this playful sort of man that she was realizing he could be. So, she laughed.

"Jack," she corrected. She liked the sound of his name in her mouth. He did too, she suspected because he grinned back at her. And then he knee walked across the pillows until he could lie down next her, propped up on one elbow, his hand splayed over her stomach, his nails scratching at the dried wax. She liked the feeling of his nails on her skin. It made goosebumps break out all over her body.

He noticed. "Are you cold?"

"No," she said with a smile. "I like the way you're touching me."

"Ah," he said. And his hand drifted down her body to toy with the patch of blonde curls above her sex.

He was so close to touching her the way she really wanted him to that she couldn't help but roll her hips up into his hand. He smiled but didn't take the bait. He leaned over and kissed her, though. She contented himself with his talented tongue for a while and was taken by complete surprise when he dipped a finger into her warm, wet slit and found her opening. She made a guttural sound into his mouth and he added a finger and she made the sound again.

He pulled back from the kiss as he found her clit with his thumb. Her eyes rolled back as they slipped closed. His hand was working magic on her lower body and his mouth found one of her nipples. She made a wanton sound and hoped that there wasn't anyone nearby the tent to hear the sounds she was making.

Soon, under his ministrations she found herself nearing the precipice of pleasure. She warned him. "Jack, please. Oh, god, please..." And his hand, disappeared. Her eyes flew open. He was lying next to her looking at her intently. "What? Why?" She asked, flummoxed.

He didn't answer her, he merely changed his position. He positioned himself over her, one arm on either side of her head, hips between her splayed thighs, and she knew she was finally going to get what she wanted since she'd first seen him naked.

He pressed his hips forward and she prepared herself to take his girth, the thickness of him she knew would be difficult but so worth it. But instead of penetrating her, he slipped along her wet cleft and bumped against her hypersensitive clit, making her whimper with the sensation. He did that over and over again until she realized it wasn't a mistake, he was doing this to her, on purpose.

Her breaths started coming in sharp pants as the stimulation became predictable enough that her body started to prepare, again, for release. This time, though, she was smart enough not to say anything. But as she grew closer, closer, right there on the very edge, he was right there with her. He stopped right before she came and smoothly slid inside her slick and waiting channel.

She groaned at the sensation of being filled. It was a welcome sensation, long overdue. She dug her fingernails into his shoulder blades as he sunk fully inside her. He hissed his pleasure into her ear and then nipped at her earlobe, before laving the sensitive skin right behind her ear.

He thrust into her slowly at first and then began building a rhythm that was strong and steady. It was so good. But soon it wasn't enough and she was panting into his ear, "Harder. Please, harder." Licking her lips meant flicking her tongue against the shell of his ear and he really liked that, so she did it often.

And once she dug her fingernails into the tight muscles of one ass cheek and he groaned her name so long and low that she did it again just to give him that kind of pleasure one more time.

Eventually his rhythm began to falter and she knew he was close. She was close too. Again. She reached down between them and found her clit, so wet. She rubbed it in tight little circles, letting the friction build her pleasure up fast alongside the feeling of being full of him. She gasped when she felt the familiar strains of orgasm being to coil up inside her.

"Come, Sam." He said into her ear. "I want to feel you come around me."

She redoubled her efforts and moments later she felt herself crest the hill of pleasure. The tightness released and she could her heartbeat throughout her whole body. It felt like all the oxygen had left the room. She could feel him inside her, and on her, all around her. She was aware of a low, keening noise she finally traced back to herself, and then she could feel the last few clenches of her sex around Jack's thick cock. He wasn't moving he was just riding the wave with her.

Finally she sighed, tightened her thighs around his hips giving him permission to resume his thrusting, and held on for all she was worth. And she was glad she did because he was ruthless as he sought his own pleasure. She loved the feeling of him slamming into her body. And soon he was stilling, his hips pressed against hers, pressing her thighs open wide, and he was emptying himself inside her with a long groan through gritted teeth.

When it was over and he pulled himself out of her body there was the immediate feeling of loss she was unprepared for given that she'd never really felt that way after sex before. But then he was right next to her, his body heat mingling with her own.

He stroked her body, trailing his fingers from shoulder to hip. He rubbed dried wax off her skin. He generally soothed her body from frenzied passion to something more akin to blissful awareness of him, satiated splendor. When she was floating in that space between sleep and wakefulness, when his hands had lulled her into a stupor that her brain had to claw it's way out of, he asked her a question.

"So, a tent full of candles that have more than one use, and a CO that almost died... think you can come up with some kind of plausible excuse for why this happened?" He asked threading the fingers of one hand into her hair.

"Nobody needs to know but us... right?" she said tentatively.

"I'd never ask you to keep this kind of a secret."

"I know that."

"And I'd never ask you to give anything up, either."

"I know that, too. Which means it's up to me how we handle this... right?"

"Yeah..." He said slowly.

"Then if it's all the same to you, I think we keep this between us."

"And we always volunteer to be the team that comes here to check up on the trade deal,"

he tightened his hand in her hair.

"Absolutely," she said, turning her head to him for a kiss. He didn't disappoint her. "I'm really glad I didn't lose you before we got a chance to do this," she whispered against his lips, "I'm really glad I didn't lose you at all."

"Me too."


End file.
